Journal article
Stranger than fiction: literary and clinical amnesia.
- 2013-03-15
Published in:
- Frontiers of neurology and neuroscience. - 2013
Amnesia
History, 16th Century
History, 17th Century
History, 18th Century
History, 19th Century
History, 20th Century
History, Ancient
Humans
Literature
Medical Illustration
Memory
Mythology
Neurology
English
This chapter broadly covers literary uses of amnesia and memory disorders. Amnesia in fiction offers authors an efficient and dramatic device to tackle themes such as identity, personal liberty, or guilt. We argue against the common complaint that fictional amnesia is scientifically inaccurate, pointing out that the goals of literature are different from those of science, that amnesia is still poorly understood, and that real-life cases can sometimes be stranger than fiction. The chapter provides examples from the neuropsychological literature, media reports, mythology, historical cases, detective stories, war stories, theatrical plays, and other genres. Special attention is given to retrograde and dissociative amnesia, as these are the most frequent types of amnesia portrayed in fiction, while other types of memory disorders are more shortly treated. We argue that the predominance of disorders affecting autobiographical memory in fiction is in itself a revealing fact about the mechanisms of human memory, illustrating how fictional treatments of pathology can inform back neurological and psychological research.
- Language
-
- English
- Open access status
- closed
- Identifiers
-
- DOI 10.1159/000345526
- PMID 23485898
- Persistent URL
- https://sonar.ch/global/documents/2078
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